Adversity doesn't mean failure

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Angels Chairman Dennis Kuhl recalled the time a widow came to a game with a funeral urn containing her husband's ashes that she planned to pour on the field.

Just as the woman started releasing the urn's contents, a gust of wind blew the ashes into the fans sitting behind her instead, creating havoc.

“First, you calm them down,” Kuhl said. “Then we got them some T-shirts and things.” Fans mollified. Disaster averted.

Kuhl said it was the kind of action – doing whatever it takes to keep the customer happy – that is a tenet of the Angels organization. It starts at the top, he said, under the leadership of Angels owner Arte Moreno.

“You empower your staff to take care of things,” he said.

Kuhl's story was just one example of how businesses can overcome adversity discussed during a conference Friday sponsored by Cal State Fullerton's Center for Leadership.

“Adversity doesn't mean failure; it means a challenge,” said Todd Priest, vice president of Curt Pringle & Associates, an Anaheim lobbying and public relations firm, who moderated one of the conference panels.

The discussions ranged from hiring good management to managing risk and handling the challenge of being in a niche market.

Shaheen Sadeghi, former president of action sports retailer Quiksilver and developer of the LAB anti-mall in Costa Mesa, said going against the concept of a traditional mall seemed risky. However, he believed consumers were tired of the formulaic, chain-store experience.

“Formulas have no empathy and no emotion,” he said. “The products and services have become robotic.”

His shopping centers, with small one-of-a-kind shops and eateries, provide the opposite.

He said having a passionate belief in that business and a willingness to take a risk on the idea have led to a community development company that is celebrating 20 years in business.

For Steve Fortunato, founder of Room Forty in Los Angeles, leadership meant abandoning his original idea of opening a traditional white-tablecloth, brick-and-mortar restaurant and creating a new concept of a white-tablecloth “restaurant without walls” catering firm.

Fortunato brings his staff and supplies to unique locations and creates a one-off restaurant experience that emphasizes fine dining and wines. His goal is to change the way people think about hospitality and catering.

“It's a big, hairy, audacious goal,” he conceded. “But when you have adversity on a day-to-day basis, if you don't have a big, hairy, audacious goal, it just becomes, ‘Why am I doing that?' because it's so hard.”

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